Ryan Murphy to Direct Mark Ruffalo in The Normal Heart

MTV reports that Eat Pray Love writer/director and “Glee” creator Ryan Murphy will direct an adaptation of Larry Kramer’s semi-autobiographical play “The Normal Heart.” Kramer wrote the script for the film, which will star Mark Ruffalo in the lead role of Ned Weeks.

“I’m directing it from Larry Kramer’s beautiful script and we’re going to shoot that in June of next year,” Murphy said. “I think it’s an important story and I think Mark Ruffalo is just beyond brilliant so I’m very excited to be directing him.”

Ruffalo earlier said: “It’s basically a story of when the AIDS outbreak happened in New York. It wasn’t really taken seriously, I think specifically because it was ‘the gay cancer,’ they called it. I think it’s a really interesting time in America. I think to see someone who really does change the world by his commitment and he’s even totally by himself at times, there’s still a real power in that. I love that it’s a people-powered movement that actually changed the way our government looked at this epidemic. I think there’s a real powerful message to that and something that we forget. We can get really cynical about what we can do, it gets stacked against us and they’re all corrupt  and at the end of the day, everything starts with people. The reason they’re there is because of us.”

Ruffalo also signed recently to play The Hulk in Marvel Studios’ The Avengers.